The Magic of Augmented Reality: Harry Potter & Wizards Unite

Written by necole on November 17, 2017 in Art, Gaming, Tech.

There’s already a kind of magic about augmented reality: in being able to alter our usual surroundings, to add mythical creatures, environmental effects, or interactive art. It makes perfect sense, then, that the next big mobile AR experience will be based in the wizarding world beloved by so many, including myself.

I grew up along with Harry Potter. I started reading the books when the main character was only a few years younger than I was, and I learned about life alongside him. Each book was a guide, a friend, an inspiration. I’ve re-read the series every other year or so since, and each time I find new meaning in it. There is great wisdom in those pages, and also great fun.

This would have been enough to excite me about the recent announcement of Niantic Labs’s next big location-based mobile AR game, but I also happen to be an AR researcher and a project manager for AR projects, so I’m doubly excited from a technology perspective. It will be interesting to see how the format that gained such widespread, enthusiastic interest through Pokemon Go is further developed with another hugely popular creative property.

There was a great amount of speculation after Pokemon Go about whether or not the mobile, location-based AR game format would take off- if other groups would be successful in at least partially replicating Niantic’s success. So far no one has even come close, so Wizards Unite is likely to be the next big game of this type. Here’s what else we know about it so far.

Firm Foundation of Fact

According to Niantic’s public statement and information on J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter news website, Pottermore, features will include: “searching for magical creatures”, “bumping into iconic wizarding world characters”, the ability to “cast spells” and “discover mysterious artefacts”, and the ability to “build up your very own, illustrious wizarding career”. What does all this mean from a gameplay perspective? Well, we can map some of these features directly onto gameplay seen in Pokemon Go and Niantic’s other location-based mobile AR game, Ingress.

Searching for magical creatures will likely be similar to searching for Pokemon in Pokemon Go. Map data collected over the course of Niantic’s previous games will provide hot spots for creature and possibly special item spawning. These creatures are likely to include those from the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them book and movies. The second movie is set to be released next November- we’ve just found out that it will be called Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Announcements for the game also include references to “bumping into iconic wizarding world characters along the way”. There is no direct equivalent to this in Pokemon Go, since the focus is on the Pokemon rather than any characters in the series. The activity might occur in some equivalent of the gyms, though, with players dueling well-known wizards from the Harry Potter world lore.

One big question is whether or not Wizards Unite will improve on Pokemon Go’s core gameplay mechanic, which involves flicking a Pokeball at the target and hoping skill level will enable the catch. There are a few ways this mechanic could be developed with spell casting, and we can find at least one example in some existing Harry Potter interactive tech.

There is a special interactive experience at Universal Studios’s Wizarding World that allows visitors to purchase a special wand that interacts with sensors around the park to “cast spells”. These spells bring to life static details around the area. In a window, curtains open to reveal dancing trolls. With a another wave of the wand, shrunken heads in Knockturn Alley begin singing a creepy song.

While these magical happenings actually result from the activation of sensors that recognize the special interactive wand, there is a map of locations for each experience that details wand movements and incantations “necessary” for each one. When I visited the parks with my young nephew he enjoyed trying to get each spell just right, and I had fun playing along. Wizards Unite might employ a similar game mechanic, with each creature subdued by a certain type of spell (swish and FLICK).

It’s also possible that the game will make use of the smartphone’s internal gyroscope that allows it to identify orientation and movement to turn the phone into a wand, though I think this is less likely. It seems unwise to encourage motion that could cause people to drop their phones, and players would have to take their eyes off the screen to create the movement.

There is one additional area of gameplay we can expect that I’m particularly excited about, partly because I was one of those players who dropped out of Pokemon Go before the feature was introduced. It has already been announced that Wizards Unite will include multiplayer questing, likely patterned after Pokemon Go’s raid battles. The introduction of this mechanic, along with changes to the gyms, were the two primary areas of improvement to Pokemon Go based on feedback from users.

I love collaborative gameplay, and this feature will likely involve players joining forces to take down more powerful monsters. It will make for some great social interaction- when Pokemon Go first launched our work team would make lunch trips to different restaurants to find new Pokestops. It was also a good excuse for a group happy hour at a new place. This blend of real-life interaction and virtual gameplay is one of the most exciting elements of the location-based game type, and the addition of multiplayer gameplayer makes it even better.

Thickets of Wildest Guesswork
One big outstanding question relates to the setting for the game. We haven’t yet received any details about what creatures and characters we can expect to meet, though it is very likely that Fantastic Beasts will feature prominently. However, it’s hard to imagine that a Harry Potter game expected to receive such widespread attention would not actually include any of the characters in the Harry Potter timeline, or Harry Potter himself.

Not that Fantastic Beasts lore wouldn’t make for great game content, but it is certainly less popular than the characters and storylines found in the main book series. Fantastic Beasts takes us back in time to the 1920s, when Gellert Grindelwald was rising to power. But is it possible that we’ll see a timey-wimey situation where characters from the next generation also somehow appear? The books do find a number of ways for characters to travel through time.

My next question relates to information that I expected to hear but did not, and that is the incorporation of houses. Ingress divided players into two teams that competed for control of geographical areas, and Pokemon Go divided players into one of three teams that competed for glory. But there hasn’t been any mention of a similar division in Wizards Unite, even though a natural one exists (and one that Harry Potter fans already enjoy). Yes, I’ve taken the house quiz on Pottermore, and I’m a Ravenclaw.

Perhaps one reasons this hasn’t been mentioned is that if the setting for the game is the one explored in Fantastic Beasts, then Hogwarts houses wouldn’t apply. However, over the past year or so J.K. Rowling has released short stories and information relating to an American equivalent of Hogwarts, Ilvermorny, and its four houses- Thunderbird, Wampus, Horned Serpent, and Pukwudgie.

These houses haven’t yet been explored in the movies, but J.K. Rowling has provided some lore about the American wizards on Pottermore. Perhaps, if the setting for the game ends up being 1920’s America, we’ll see these houses factor in. It’s possible that if this is the plan, it won’t be announced until some marketing is done about the houses, so that players have a better idea of what they’re being sorted into.

This Isn’t Just Any Manky Old Boot

There’s one last bit of news to mention, and that’s the subtle announcement, largely lost in excitement over new AR adventures, of Portkey Games.

Along with the announcement of Wizards Unite, it was announced on Pottermore that the game will be released under a new Warner Bros label, Portkey Games, that will include a “series of games inspired by J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World”. The website notes that these will include both mobile and console games.

Now, there was a lot to love about the LEGO Harry Potter games, but the world could use a few new Harry Potter console games. Maybe we’ll also see a Harry Potter VR game, which has been on my wish list for a while. I wouldn’t mind a chance to explore Hogwarts as a new student or to keep watch over my shoulder for spiders while on a trip through the Forbidden Forest.

Now that the decision has been made to venture into a new form of media with the Harry Potter story- augmented reality- it will be interesting to see if Portkey Games explores other new game types.

That Flighty Temptress, Adventure
I’m very excited about this game announcement, and I look forward to following along as more information comes out.

Thanks to all of the exciting wizarding news of the last week or so, my vision of the future now includes people dressed as wizards walking around downtown waving their phones at street lamps and benches. Or maybe there will be wizards trying to dress as muggles, walking around in kilts and raincoats, joining forces to collaboratively defeat a basilisk hiding in the local park. The cosplay opportunities are endless. It will be like some great, magical street art performance based on one of my favorite fictional worlds.

Go ahead and talk about all the hype around Pokemon Go and how the game will tie into the next movie deal and the franchise’s cross-generational appeal. I’m far more interested in strategizing how I’m going to track down nifflers at work.